For the third-straight week, the two-time defending champion Chiefs eked out a narrow win in front of a large television audience.
The latest edition of NFL Sunday Night Football (Chiefs-Falcons) averaged an 11.7 rating and 24.8 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, per Nielsen fast-nationals and Adobe Analytics — marking the largest Week 3 SNF audience on record. With a streaming audience of 2.6 million measured by Adobe Analytics (the fourth-highest for a regular season game on NBC), the Nielsen-only figure would come in around 22.2 million.
As with any historical records, keep in mind that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen measurements until 2020 and NBC did not begin reporting its streaming viewership until 2016.
The Chiefs’ win, which peaked with 27.5 million during the 9:30 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 20% from Steelers-Raiders last year.
NBC and Peacock are now averaging a combined 24.3 million viewers for NFL games this season — not counting the Friday night Peacock exclusive in Week 1 — its highest average through four games since 2015. NBC has had the benefit of airing the Chiefs twice in the first three weeks, with Kansas City’s Kickoff Game win over the Ravens clocking in at more than 29 million (24.6 million on a Nielsen-only basis).
All three Chiefs games this season have set new viewership marks, and while some of that can be taken with a grain of salt in an era of changing methodologies, it also cannot be said about any other team. The Kickoff Game was the most-watched ever on a combined basis (the Nielsen-only audience was actually down year-over-year), and their subsequent matchup against Cincinnati on CBS delivered the largest Week 2 audience since at least 1990 (27.87M per Nielsen alone).
Beyond their starpower on and off the field, the Chiefs continue to win close, controversial games that are decided in the final minutes. Dating back to last year’s playoffs, Kansas City has played six-straight games decided by a touchdown or less.
